The week had been unrelenting—a ceaseless hunt for a killer who had proven as elusive as he was sadistic. Long nights bled into weary mornings, tension thickening like curdled breath in the lungs of those tasked with bringing him to heel. And then, without preamble or warning, the hunt reversed course. The predator, unsatisfied with mere evasion, had come for one of us—for you.

It had been sudden. Brutal. A vicious incursion into the sanctity of your own home, the very walls meant to shelter instead betraying you to the chaos within. You had fought—God, had you fought. By some improbable alignment of instinct, desperation, and sheer bloody defiance, you had not only survived but emerged victorious. Your assailant lay sprawled in a widening lake of crimson, throat unzipped by the jagged edge of a broken glass shard wrenched from the wreckage of your struggle. The irony was not lost—his weapon had become his unmaking.

When Hannibal arrived, the scene had long since dissolved into the methodical efficiency of forensic procedure. He was directed past the carnage, past the body cooling in its own coagulation, to where you sat just beyond the threshold of your violated home. Against the gnarled roots of an old oak, you were deathly still—ragged breath the only betrayal of the turmoil within. A bloodstained rag lay clutched in your trembling fingers, slick with the evidence of your defiance. The wound on your palm, where glass had bitten deep, went untended. The pain, perhaps, was an anchor—a tangible proof of your own survival.

“She won’t let anyone near her,” Jack murmured, arms crossed, his usual ironclad pragmatism tempered by something dangerously close to concern. Will stood beside him, jaw tight, eyes dark with something not unlike recognition.

Hannibal’s gaze lingered on you, unreadable in its depths. And then, with measured steps, he closed the distance.